Quote:
Originally Posted by Astro
Range anxiety will disappear once people change their habits and expectations.
Look at what happened with cell (mobile) phones.
Vast numbers of people had basic mobile phones.
Then along come smart phones. They make the same calls but the battery only lasts a day not over a week. Initially everyone is asking why swap to a phone that needs to be recharged every day. But then we reached a tipping point where the extra features the smart phone offered outweighed the inconvenience of recharging every day.
Now it would be rare to see somebody using a basic phone.
Charging every night is just what you do. Anybody who reminisces about phones that lasted a week or more between charges sounds like a dinosaur.
EVs will be the same, we are just not at the tipping point yet. EVs need to have advantages over just being cheaper per mile on paper and those advantages need to be seen by the public.
This is the role of the early adopters.
Tesla has also done great things in swaying the general public.
Before Tesla, when i spoke to people their impression of an electric car was that they were super slow, crazy expensive and didn't go far enough to to be useful to anybody. Now that has changed to "Wish my car had EV performance", "I can almost justify the cost of an EV" and "They almost go far enough".
So the publics impression is changing.
|
This is a pretty good comparison, and maybe EVs will be more widely accepted as you suggest...
However, I immediately see a few reasons why your comparison breaks down:
1) There is a much larger disruption to your daily routine when your EV battery is drained vs your phone. Phone can be plugged into a charger nearly anywhere and almost immediately be returned to service. Charging your car in a random location can be a challenge and you must wait for a sufficient charge to be able to use it.
2) Smart phones have remarkable features that dumb phones can't compete with. I don't see that happening with EVs. Most features added to an EV can be added to a conventional car. A few things EVs are better at, but in general, EVs have reduced functionality (such as shorter range) but higher up front cost. Unless we have artificial incentives to encourage EV adoption, I think it will take a long time, if ever, for EVs to make up a significant market share. That said... our government is already adding artificial incentives, so maybe they would continue adding more.